Weather With You

Hello. Excuse me while I pretend I constantly hang about grey wooden panels wearing a red woollen dress and a gawjus mossy green scarf/shawl. Okay, so I actually do that quite a bit but I rarely wear matching lipstick and have my photo taken whilst faffing, so there is that.

In short, we had a photo shoot for the Karise shawl yesterday. For some reason the sun came out just as I took off my cape and the sunshine just made everything so much easier. I am never comfortable in front of a camera (stand straight, suck in tummy, smile, look natural) but the photo shoot wasn't too bad.

Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you..

Hopefully that means tomorrow will be sunny too. I am heading out to West Kilbride to see Old Maiden Aunt's Lilith and her new studio. Her housewarming is on Saturday but true to form I shall be working, so instead I am heading out to lend a hand prepping the place for the hordes. Some sunshine would be most welcome as my train will have a view of the Isle of Arran - and Arran is just prettier when it is sunny.

Oh, hell. Here you go. That song. I don't actually like it, you know, but it is the sound of summer..

There & Back Again

Mornings are less rough when you wake up to this view. The north-east coast of Scotland is gorgeous: expansive light, dramatic cliffs, and teeming with wildlife. During my days in Aberdeenshire, I spotted seals, puffins, deer, and more buzzards than I have ever seen before. I wish I could have stayed longer.

As always I paid Aberdeen Art Gallery a visit. It is relatively small, but has an exquisite collection mixing works by well-known artists such as J.W. Waterhouse, and Francis Bacon with less famous (but really interesting) artists like Phoebe Anna Traquair and applied arts & crafts, textiles, and metalwork within Scotland. As always I was drawn to Joan Eardley's work  as well as Francis Cadell's, but I also enjoyed the new exhibit on wartime watercolours.

For the first time I visited the Maritime Museum - just a short walk away from the Art Gallery.

As Aberdeen is an oil industry city, the museum had plenty of information about the black gold and the 1970s oil boom. I was slightly saddened by how this recent event had pushed a lot of Aberdeenshire's fishing heritage into the periphery. The small exhibition on herring fishing made me think fondly of Kate Davies' Caller Herrin hat. I seem able to find a knitterly angle to most things these days..

Finding a knitterly angle to my last port-of-call is not difficult, though. Wool 4 Ewe is a lovely independent yarn shop and I visit them as often as I can.

This time around I was there by special invitation from the friendly Wool 4 Ewe team in order to run a workshop on triangular lace shawls.

Teaching lace shawl knitting is always rewarding because there are so many different aspects to cover: construction, yarn & needle choice, chart-reading, and post-knitting care. I find it quite a technical topic to teach and I try hard to balance all the technical information with fun hands-on experiments.

I'm happy to say that all my students left all excited and enthused about knitting lace shawls. The Wool 4 Ewe team asked me which shawls I would recommend to beginners. I gave them this list of free patterns which I hope you will also find useful. All links (and roads?) lead to Ravelry.

• Kiri by Polly Outhwaite
• Adamas by Miriam L. Felton
• Holden by Mindy Wilkes
• Bitterroot by Rosemary Hill
• Lavalette by Kirsten Kapur (no charts!)

I left the shop empty-handed although the new-to-me Manos Del Uruguay yarn called Serena called out to me with its subtle colours and beautiful blend of alpaca and pima cotton. It is really pretty. I am just so snowed under with projects and commissions that I have no idea when I would have time for an indulgent little project. I am not complaining: such is life..

.. I did manage to finish China Mieville's Embassytown whilst travelling. More on that book soon.

Greenery

Dear FirstGlasgow, I am interested in learning why your bus driver wanted to charge me an additional 45p for a return ticket within Zone 1. I was wearing a green coat (from a reputable High Street chain) at the time which the driver was quite obviously eye-balling before informing me that a Zone 1 ticket was "For you, £3.45". Surely FirstGlasgow does not base its pricing upon what a customer wears, so what gives?

Looking forward to hearing from you, Karie Bookish.

In case anybody wonders why I'm discussing my wardrobe in a complaints letter, here's the Wikipedia article on Sectarianism in Glasgow. My green coat is just a green coat, but unfortunately some people see it differently. Green equals support for Celtic FC in their eyes and so I never wear my coat when the Old Firm are playing each other. People get very silly sometimes, unfortunately.

In less serious news, I cast off my Skald shawl the other day and unpinned it today. Photos and info to follow. The yarn, a Faroese 1ply, blocked beautifully but it does look like a cat slept on top of the shawl. It's really quite hairy. I have cast on for the next shawl, the Rock Island Shawl, in Old Maiden Aunt merino/silk lace (colourway: strange rock'n'rollers). The shawl is actually meant for Ms Old Maiden Aunt herself, Lilith, and I hope she'll like it. It has been ages since I promised to knit her a shawl..

.. I've been knitting whilst listening to Enzology, a podcast from Radio New Zeland about one of my all-time favourite bands: Split Enz (sort-of like New Zealand's answer to The Beatles, only not). It is a heady combination: lace, sunshine, and early Split Enz (youtube link). The combination has truly blown the cobwebs from my brain.

Less than two weeks to the Eurovision Song Contest, though, and I'm still not excited. Maybe I need to remove a few more cobwebs..

Sunshine on Leith

Certain times of the year are always more fun than others. I'm entering a really, really busy and really, really fun part of the working year for me - which may mean I won't be able to blog as much as I usually do. Having said that, it might also result in more blogging because I have many things buzzing about my head. Hmm. On a related note, a big thank you to supreme Swedish knitting e-zine and website, Stickamere, which is doing a KAL for my free fingerless gloves pattern, The Vicar's Fields. I'm looking forward to seeing what you all do with my pattern!

Today I went to Edinburgh. It was an exceptionally beautiful day (Scotland is always exceedingly pretty in April. April and October) and I was lucky to lunch in a place with a most extraordinary view over Leith and the Firth of Forth. It all made for a good day away from Glasgow and I felt rejuvenated by good company, fine conversation, and post-work Danish pastries with Katherine.

I also slipped in a post-work browse of the McAree Brothers' knitting shop close to The National Portrait Gallery. I had never been to McAree before but I actually left feeling very, very impressed by the shop. It does not have a big buzz about it - possibly because it does not stock fancy handdyed yarns or cool designers or does that elusive Ravelry vibe, but it does exactly what I want a LYS to do: it does depth. It has baskets upon baskets of seemingly random yarns, it is stocked to the rafters with workhorse yarns, and it has put an enormous amount of time and effort into its displays. It's not the sort of place which only does five balls of something when you really want three sweaters' worth. Even better, it has a wealth of long discontinued yarns hidden away in its Aladdin cave, so if you are the type of knitter who is always two balls short you just need to call the lovely McAree staff. And I have not even mentioned the great assortment of books or the knitting notions or the charming staff..

.. I actually left empty-handed (mostly because I'm drowning in yarn already) but anyone visiting Edinburgh should pop into this little LYS that can because it so clearly does care.You might not get unicorn yarn handdyed by elves in McAree, but you won't lack for everyday yarn and sometimes everyday yarn is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Finally, I overheard this on Edinburgh's High Street (walking towards my Danish pastries): "In Melbourne you really do get four seasons in one day." Certain readers will know why that comment put a smile on my face..

.. and here's a song about sunshine on Leith (youtube link). I think I have gone native, dear readers, because this song is as Scottish as it gets and I love it in a terribly, terribly sentimental way.

The Day Before the Day

I'm so excited about tomorrow! The Tramway was heaving with activity today: stitching, story-telling, music , and beautiful people creating beautiful things.

Loop Needs You

You may remember me mentioning Loop: The Centenary of International Women's Day - an exhibition (and celebration) taking place at Glasgow's Tramway art gallery. You may even have knitted a square or two for the event. The event takes place on Tuesday and the Tramway is heaving with activity. I spent most of Friday at the Tramway stitching together blanket squares. It was a hugely inspirational day.

One old lady was busy stitching together crochet squares but found time to sing us old Glasgow songs from her childhood - songs about the old Govan cinema and "oor baldy heided maister". Women from a choir sang us Matt McGinn songs. Women from a local immigrant group came by to watch us stitch and some ended up wanting to join in despite initial shyness. Later a cellist started playing Bach.

Generations of women showed up - grandmothers with their grandchildren; mothers with their children. Many different nationalities were there. Many different parts of Scotland were represented. Even a few brave men showed up to stitch - my partner was one of them and he proved very adept with a needle and thread! I was rather proud..

However, help is still needed.

You do not have to be greatly skilled with a needle of thread. You do not even have to know how to thread a needle as plenty of of volunteers will be on hand to show you the ropes.

If you can spare thirty minutes of your day (or more!), please come down to the Tramway tomorrow between 10am and 11pm.

You won't regret it. You will meet some truly inspirational people with wonderful stories to tell, you'll be surrounded by beautiful art, and your help will be hugely appreciated.

I will continue to be busy these next few days, but thankfully I have a few blog posts in hand so stay tuned..